Uruguay Banking, Opening Account And Withdrawing Dollars

[French jurist]

Many many thanks Frenchie - since I am renting and the utilities are all in the landlord's name I wonder if that police certificate of residence would be good enough? (I am in the process of going for citizenship here...) I should have my Argentine passport in the next month or so...

Mhhh... I don't know if a certificado de domicilio would be enough, but why not (if it shows the date it was issued). At worst you can ask by email.

 

[Juanito]

Guys - this is not the same topic but it is related - I am going to Colonia tomorrow - just to check things out for myself - I have been told that if I have an overseas credit card and overseas atm cards I should be able to go to almost any atm machine in Colonia and get dollars out - is this correct ? I have a couple of bank accounts overseas and I am hoping to use them in atm machines in Colonia to get out as much as I can in dollars - but then I am hoping that over the counter in one of the banks there I can use my overseas credit card to purchase dollars also (hoping it will be treated as ''purchase'' rather than ''cash in advance'') - does my game plan make sense? Obviously back here in BA the dollar is looking pretty good right now so this is very much worth doing as long as I can get enough dollars to make it worthwhile... Thanks in advance.

 

[Davidglen77]

Guys - this is not the same topic but it is related - I am going to Colonia tomorrow - just to check things out for myself - I have been told that if I have an overseas credit card and overseas atm cards I should be able to go to almost any atm machine in Colonia and get dollars out - is this correct ? I have a couple of bank accounts overseas and I am hoping to use them in atm machines in Colonia to get out as much as I can in dollars - but then I am hoping that over the counter in one of the banks there I can use my overseas credit card to purchase dollars also (hoping it will be treated as ''purchase'' rather than ''cash in advance'') - does my game plan make sense? Obviously back here in BA the dollar is looking pretty good right now so this is very much worth doing as long as I can get enough dollars to make it worthwhile... Thanks in advance.

You can certainly withdraw dollars from a credit card, but those are NOT considered purchases whether you get them from an ATM or at a teller bank window. They are cash advances and accrue interest from the minute you do the transaction. There is no 30 day interest free grace period like there are on purchases. Do the numbers as even with the fee and interest charges you may come out ahead on bringing the cash dollars to BsAs and exchanging them at a cueva. A friend of mine got $9.60 : 1 this weekend on calle Florida at a cueva.

 

[Big Al]

In 2008 I bought a property here. Had to transfer a large sum of money from my Chase accnt. in NYC to a local bank here in BA. Nobody would do it. Some one recommended Casa Puente.
http://www.puentenet...e/home.action��
When you buy a prop here it's all done in Cold Hard CA$H right on the table. I'd never seen this. But it went through pretty smoothly. I did have to have a letter from my R.E. Lawyer in NYC explaining where the $$$ came from. And I did have to pay the Casa Puente a commission for their services. No big deal.
Everything went very well. No headaches no hassles .
Good luck.

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[Jaredberryman]

I have an EU passport and have been here in Argentina for almost 3 years now - I would like to transfer US dollars to an account in Uruguay then do the monthly ferry trip to take out US dollars there and bring them back to BA to get the (obvious) benefits - what will I need now (September 2013) to be able to do this ? I suppose I have two questions really:

1. What will I need to open a US dollar account in Uruguay?
2. What banks do people recommend ?

Thanking you all in advance.

If it's less than 3000 dollars per month, just use Xoom as you won't need a bank account. Xoom only lets you do up to 3000 per transfer though.

 

[Juanito]

Thanks for the replies guys. I did the Colonia run on Monday - and got my visa renewed at the same time of course. Talking about a pain though. Problems with all of the machines - I was there for maybe 14 hours and it was only towards the end of the day that I managed (finally) to get out about 1800 bucks - using 2 cards and taking out no more than 200 bucks at a time (that seemed to be the ''magic number'' on the day) - and unfortunately that costs 6 dollars each time - so not impressed with that. On the UP side here in BA I did get 9.70 to 1 as my exchange rate so I got more than 17,000 pesos in hand for that. Reasonably pleased but considering that the rate was *10.25* the day before I do feel that I missed out a bit. I have managed to set up an account now so the next time it should be WAY easier - I will simply go there - I can take out ANY amount I want on the spot in dollars - then simply take the ferry back here and do the exchange - so it has been an educational experience. I piece of intel that MIGHT be really useful to those who want to do the same as me (especially re: opening an account) - you can have ''all'' the papers you need except the local services bill in your name - that IS going to be a major sticking point with all the banks there - but THERE IS a way round it - and of course you won't find out till you get there. IF you have accounts for services (phone, internet, whatever) from your own country - accounts that you are still paying back in the US/Canada/wherever - the banks will ALSO accept these in lieu of a local argentine one. That is what I had to do to ''get over the line'' to get my new account in Uruguay being processed. Oh - you might have to wait up to 8 days to get the account set up as well - and then of course you still have to transfer the funds from your overseas account to your Uruguayan account. I thought the least I could do is give you all some feedback on my first Uruguay/Colonia run - hopefully this helps. BTW - if you are going to do the run and JUST rely on the atm machines in Grl Flores street (I think that is the main drag with all the atm machines I used - the one where you turn left and towards the end you have UGRU bank) be prepared that you might have to wait for the whole day to actually get some money - that you might have to try different amounts and options and machines. I have a feeling that they ''turn it on'' and ''turn it off'' pretty quickly (in terms of being able to get dollars out...).

 

[French jurist]

@Juanito

Like you said in the first line of your post: you went there a Monday (after the weekend = ATMs are dry).
Reloads are supposed to take place at 1pm.

AFAIK, there's no "turn on"/"turn off" function of those ATMs. They spit out greenbacks for as long they are filled.

Regarding the local services bill: indeed the tricky part... Didn't know about the homeland services bill. Banks want to open an account for you but they must stick with the anti laundering rules. Funnily I provided a receipt for my gated community expensas & that was enough. This should work for people renting an apartment in the city too (just make sure the administrator writes clearly your name & the address on the receipt).

 

[Juanito]

Guys - being a ''newbie'' and all I hate to ''strain the friendship'' - but I will ask what might be a really dumb question anyway What is it they say? ''If you don't ask, you don't get''...

The main thing I have been trying to do is starting to come together quite nicely - I now have my account up and running in Uruguay (US dollar account) and I will be sending money to it shortly - I now have a local (pesos) account with the same bank here in Buenos Aries as well - but it seems MAJOR restrictions have only RECENTLY (the last few months) been brought in here... I NOW have no problems at all with getting US dollars whenever I want them - both here in BA (don't ask lol) and also from my ''Uruguay trips'' - THAT part is fine...

HOWEVER - here is the tricky bit - whilst I love getting the advantage of making 40% on my money every time when I do the money changing thing (dollars to pesos) I do NOT want to end up with a massive amount of pesos just lying around - and I don't want to have to tie all my funds up in pesos - what I need is THIS - a cheap, safe, reliable way to be able to take my pesos somewhere here in BA and send them (converted to dollars of course) back to one of my overseas accounts - getting the LEGAL rate (today I think it was 5.97 to 1 from memory) and NOT being hit with a major transfer fee...

THIS is where I am hoping some of the expats here who have ''been around for a while'' will be able to help me out (?) WHAT is my best option? Western Union ? (I've used them overseas and I am assuming they are just as bad here - not giving you a good exchange rate and then hitting you with massive fees on top of that) Forex? Other options?

I was REALLY surprised to be told (while I was opening my new account here) that I cannot RECEIVE money into the account from overseas, that I cannot use it to TRANSFER money overseas - basically I HAVE the account but I CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH IT - apparently this is something christina has only just brought in over the last couple of months - and apparently before that you could do it all (as usual it looks like my timing is ''just perfect''

Anyway - any advice or help at all would be wonderful.

Many thanks in advance,

Juanito.

 

[ghost]

" I do NOT want to end up with a massive amount of pesos just lying around - and I don't want to have to tie all my funds up in pesos - what I need is THIS - a cheap, safe, reliable way to be able to take my pesos somewhere here in BA and send them (converted to dollars of course) back to one of my overseas accounts - getting the LEGAL rate (today I think it was 5.97 to 1 from memory) and NOT being hit with a major transfer fee..."
Why are you generating surplus pesos?

 

[mariano-BCN]

I wonder how easy is to open a bank account in Colonia and not having problems back in BsArs with the Afip. Both governments signed an agreement in order to trace Argentines or those living in Argentina having an not declared bank-account in dollars in Uruguay.